Quotes about homeland (8819 quotes, page 51)

“I am conscious of having served England as I served my own country.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

As engraved on the statue of Ferdinand Foch on Grosvenor Square, London.

“In developped countries, successive governments have always acted like firemen putting out fires instead of architects designing new buildings. The tax loopholes they have created are responses to emotions provoked by a given event, or an attempt to ease social tension caused by taxpayer exasperation (and/or reflecting their power). Any rational global management policy must satisfy two imperatives: simplicity; and stability.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

General Theory of Social and Tax Expenditures and Proposals for Recasting the French System of Tax 'Loopholes' https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2841200 Article in Revue de Droit Fiscal n36 (2016).
Tax policy, Tax and Social Expenditures

Success

“When under attack, no country is obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

"The Axis of Petulance" in The Washington Post (1 March 2002)
2000s, 2002

“First of all, no one can accuse me, Ayad Jamal Aldin, of secatarianism, because I support a secular regime that fully separates religion and the state. […] I believe that my freedom as a Shia and as a religious person will never be complete unless I preserve the freedom of the Sunni, the Christian, the Jew, the Sabai and the Yazidi. We will not be able to preserve the freedom of the mosque unless we preserve the freedom of entertainment clubs. […] The curricula - both the modern ones, in some Arab and Islamic countries, and the books of jurisprudence and heritage - have many flaws that must be fixed once and for all. There are rulings about Ahl al-Dhimma - even if, Allah be praised, no current regime can enforce these rulings. However, just for the sake of amusement and diversion, I recommend that the viewers read the books of jurisprudence, and see how Ahl al-Dhimma are treated. I especially recommend this to people with a lust for Arab and Islamic history, who claim that our history is a source of pride, and that others were treated with kindness and love - especially Christians and Jews. Among these rulings, a Dhimmi must wear a belt, so he would be identifiable. Moreover, it is recommended that he be forced to the narrowest paths, and there are even jurisprudents who say that it is recommended to slap a Christian on the back of his neck so he would feel humiliated and degraded. This is how we harass him and then invite him to join Islam. I can swear that the Prophet Muhammad is innocent of such inhuman jurisprudence. I challenge anyone among the people with a lust for history to talk candidly to the West, to the advocates of human rights, and tell them that our heritage has such evils and flaws. We are a nation of blackout and darkness. We cannot live in the light of day. […] We do not hold ourselves accountable. This is why America came to demand that the Arabs be accountable. We must have more self-confidence and be accountable before others hold us accountable. We must discipline ourselves before the Americans and English discipline us. We must maintain human rights, which we have neglected for 1,300 or 1,400 years, to this day - until the arrival of the Americans, the Christians, the English, the Zionists, the Crusaders - call them what you will. They came to teach you, the followers of Muhammad, how to respect human rights.”

Iyad Jamal Al-Din (1961) Iraqi politician

Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: The Arabs Want Tyrannical Regimes, in Line with Their Backward Culture, LBC TV, July 31, 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ZKffu6Wsg,

Love , People , Books , Religion

“The past is dead; let it bury its dead. Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling. Make your place in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished – a reunited country.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

In the 1880s, as quoted on an inscription at Vicksburg National Military Park http://jeffreyevanbrooks.blogspot.com/2015/09/sadness-and-hope-along-siege-lines-of.html.
1880s

Feeling , Past , Dead

“We're saying that Germany wants to destroy us. And right now in Germany a whole lot of good quiet people like us, no worse than we are, they're getting whipped into a frenzy by the same story. They're being told the others are penning them into a country that's too small, and don't want to let them live. On one side or the other somebody's being sold a bill of goods. Maybe the Germans are wrong. We don't know. All I know is, I don't want to go killing some guy that never did me any harm, and who hasn't the choice but to do what he's told. I've got nothing against that poor guy. Why should I go and stick a bayonet into him? He wants to live, just like I do. He doesn't want to die.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.45

People , Guy

“The Prime Minister constantly asserts that the nuclear weapon has kept the peace in Europe for the last 40 years… Let us go back to the middle 1950s or to the end of the 1940s, and let us suppose that nuclear power had never been invented… I assert that in those circumstances there would still not have been a Russian invasion of western Europe. What has prevented that from happening was not the nuclear hypothesis… but the fact that the Soviet Union knew the consequences of such a move, consequences which would have followed whether or not there were 300,000 American troops stationed in Europe. The Soviet Union knew that such an action on its part would have led to a third world war—a long war, bitterly fought, a war which in the end the Soviet Union would have been likely to lose on the same basis and in the same way as the corresponding war was lost by Napoleon, by the Emperor Wilhelm and by Adolf Hitler…
For of course a logically irresistible conclusion followed from the creed that our safety depended upon the nuclear capability of the United States and its willingness to commit that capability in certain events. If that was so—and we assured ourselves for 40 years that it was—the guiding principle of the foreign policy of the United Kingdom had to be that, in no circumstances, must it depart from the basic insights of the United States and that any demand placed in the name of defence upon the United Kingdom by the United States was a demand that could not be resisted. Such was the rigorous logic of the nuclear deterrent…
It was in obedience to it… that the Prime Minister said, in the context of the use of American bases in Britain to launch an aggressive attack on Libya, that it was "inconceivable" that we could have refused a demand placed upon this country by the United States. The Prime Minister supplied the reason why: she said it was because we depend for our liberty and freedom upon the United States. Once let the nuclear hypothesis be questioned or destroyed, once allow it to break down, and from that moment the American imperative in this country's policies disappears with it.
A few days ago I was reminded, when reading a new biography of Richard Cobden, that he once addressed a terrible sentence of four words to this House of Commons. He said to hon. Members: "You have been Englishmen." The strength of those words lies in the perfect tense, with the implication that they were so no longer but had within themselves the power to be so again. I believe that we now have the opportunity, with the dissolution of the nightmare of the nuclear theory, for this country once again to have a defence policy that accords with the needs of this country as an island nation, and to have a foreign policy which rests upon a true, undistorted view of the outside world. Above all, we have the opportunity to have a foreign policy that is not dictated from outside to this country, but willed by its people. That day is coming. It may be delayed, but it will come.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech on Foreign Affairs in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/apr/07/foreign-affairs (7 April 1987).
1980s

War , People , World , Peace

“It’s also time Australians stopped being apologetic about the values that have made our country as free, fair and prosperous as any on Earth.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2015, The religion of Islam must reform (December 9, 2015)

Time

“The cataclysmic force that hit our country requires serious response to influence significant rehabilitation and reconstruction of the communities barreled by catastrophes. We need to infuse major financial foundation to recoup and retain the physical, economic and social viability of these communities.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Interaksyon http://www.interaksyon.com/article/75681/senate-approves-2014-national-budget-on-third-and-final-reading
2013

Communication

“This country is not the free-trading nation it once was. We have become too lazy, and too fat on our successes in previous generations, companies who could be contributing to our national prosperity - but choose not to because it might be too difficult or too time-consuming or because they can't play golf on a Friday afternoon - we've got to be saying to them if you want to share in the prosperity of our country you have a duty to contribute to the prosperity of our country.”

Liam Fox (1961) British Conservative politician

At a Conservative Way Forward event. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/uk-business-is-too-lazy-and-fat-and-prefers-to-play-golf-says-liam-fox-tbqpt5r97 (September 10, 2016)
2016

Time , Success

“One of the most effective forms of industrial or military sabotage limits itself to damage that can never be thoroughly proven—or even proven at all—to be anything deliberate. It is like an invisible political movement; perhaps it isn’t there at all. If a bomb is wired to a car’s ignition, then obviously there is an enemy; if public building or a political headquarters is blown up, then there is a political enemy. But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs, if equipment merely fails to function, if it appears faulty, especially in a slow fashion, over a period of natural time, with numerous small failures and misfirings—then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 6 (p. 91)

Cars , Fashion , Failure , Nature

“No tyrant or usurper can ever invade our rights so long as we are united. Let Mr. Lincoln attempt it, and his party will scatter like chaff before the storm of popular indignation which will burst forth from one end of the country to the other. Secession or revolution will not be justified until legal and constitutional means of redress have been tried, and I can not believe that the time will ever come when these will prove inadequate.”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

1860s, Speech in Austin (1860)

Time

“If we were to ask which country is the most corrupt in the world, the first answer to come to mind would be dictated by the perceived level of corruption. Perhaps one might think of Mexico, of South American countries, of African countries, of the Middle East or Italy. But the most corrupt is the UK. It’s not a type of a corruption that concerns civil servants, policemen or mayors; it’s a type of a corruption that is consubstantial to economic system. The British economic system feeds itself on corruption. And in the midst of this, the British government and its citizens have not woken up to the plight that their country is going through. A plight greater than earthquakes, greater than terror attacks.”

Roberto Saviano (1979) Italian journalist, writer and essayist

Dirty Money in London event (2016)

World , Thinking

“In a paper belonging to the Spectator there is a short description of a country wake. "I found," says the author, "a ring of cudgel-players, who were breaking one another's heads in order to make some impression on their mistresses' hearts."…to this he adds another curious pastime, as a kind of Christmas gambol, which he had seen also; that is, a yawning match for a Cheshire cheese; the sport began about midnight, when the whole company were disposed to be drowsy; and he that yawned the widest, and at the same time most naturally, so as to produce the greatest number of yawns from the spectators, obtained the cheese.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 369
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Country wakes

Nature , Sport , Time , Heart

“I for one will not re-open the floodgates of Admiralty jurisdiction upon the people of this country.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

The Queen v. Judge of City of London Court (1891), L. R. 1 Q. B. D. 299.

People

“You know how in many parts of our troubled world they are yelling 'revolution! revolution!' In Tennessee they are yelling 'evolution… we want our thumbs!' The thing is they see people with thumbs on T. V. all day, boy that's got to drive them hog-wild huh? [mimics monkey] Trailers are shaking. They're nice people they're just, what would you call 'em - rural? Backwoods, country? They're real nice, after a show one of these guys came up to me and said 'hey, you're great, you cracked me up, I was about to spit!'… Sorry? He said 'no I loved it, I'd like you to meet my wife and sister.' And there was one girl standing there… not a thumb between 'em. Goddamnit now what are the odds of that? Okay the girl had a little nub growin' in, but girls evolve quicker than guys.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Sane Man (1989)

Love , People , World , Guy

“Atheists are the fastest-growing religious subgroup in all fifty states. There are more atheists in this country than there are Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists combined and doubled.”

David Silverman (1957) American animator and director

2012-03-21
Unbelievable! Atheists to Rally in Record Numbers
Carol Pinchefsky
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/03/21/unbelievable-atheists-to-rally-in-record-numbers/

“And don't tell me this isn't your war. You swore an oath to serve the King of Spain, and the king of Spain is a prisoner in France and you were supposed to be his guard. By God, this is your war far more than it's my war. I never swore an oath to protect Spain, I never had a woman raped by a Frenchman or a child murdered by a dragoon or a harvest stolen and a house burned by a Crapaud forage party. Your country has suffered all those things, and your country is Spain, and if you'd rather fight for Ireland than for Spain, then why in the name of Almighty God did you take the Spanish oath?”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 110
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

God , War , Suffering , Fight

“Well, as soon as he [Trump] travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease fire, the release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends eleven hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

World , Peace , Travel

“Kindliness, sympathy with the under dog, love of home! Are not these all characteristics of the ordinary Englishman that you know? He is a strong individualist in this, that he does not want to mould himself into any common mould, to be like everybody else; he likes to develop his own individuality. And yet he can combine for service. Some of the best things in this country have originated among our own common people with no help from governments—friendly society work, our trade unions, our hospitals and our education before the State took it in hand. Then the Englishman has a profound respect for law and order—that is part of his tradition of self-government. Ordered liberty—not disordered liberty, nor what invariably follows, tyranny; but ordered liberty, at present one of the rare things of this topsy-turvy world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from London (25 September 1933), quoted in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 13-14.
1933

Love , People , World , Education

“If you know a better place to live right now than this country, get a ticket and try to get there.”

Ray Lyman Wilbur (1875–1949) President of Stanford University

Adress to Stanford Student Body, 1940. "Ray Lyman Wilbur Taken By Death", Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1949

“Iraq strives to safeguard the interests of her sons within the framework of true national unity and the general interests of its brothers within the Arab framework. I ask you, are there any frontiers of a foreign country between us and Syria? Is there any foreign country between us and Syria? Where is it? Are there any frontiers of a foreign country between Egypt and Sudan, or between Egypt and Libya? All are the frontiers of our brothers.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

The historical extempore speech at the Reserve Officers' College (1959)

“We've got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour. The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital. Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

The Telegraph, 18 Jul 2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8643584/Immigration-should-be-frozen-says-Miliband-adviser.html

People

“People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Speech in Boston (2002)

God , People , World , Universe

“Let not what thou canst not prevent, though it be the ruin of thy home or country, draw thee from thy proper work.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 98

Home , Drawing

“There is only one duty: to Germanise this country [the East] by the immigration of Germans, and to look upon the natives as Redskins.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Secret conversation October 17, 1941 quoted in World History, Volume 1 pg. 703 https://books.google.com/books?id=J1g7pxIrctQC&pg=PA703&lpg=PA703&dq='There+is+only+one+duty:+to+Germanize+%5B%E2%80%9Cthe+East%E2%80%9D%5D+by+the+immigration+of+Germans,+and+to+look+upon+the+natives+as+Redskins&source=bl&ots=ivCFt6jbTz&sig=NNM68pyr1zvuOQHh98r1XK0XlL0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwillfzazpTXAhXFyyYKHblIApYQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q='There%20is%20only%20one%20duty%3A%20to%20Germanize%20%5B%E2%80%9Cthe%20East%E2%80%9D%5D%20by%20the%20immigration%20of%20Germans%2C%20and%20to%20look%20upon%20the%20natives%20as%20Redskins&f=false and The Holocaust Encyclopedia https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008219
1940s

“…In the year AH 631, he invaded the country of Mãlwah and conquered the fort of Bhîlsã. He also took the city of Ujjain, and had the temple of Mahãkãl… completely demolished, destroying it from its foundations; and he carried away the effigy of Bikramãjît… and certain other statues which were fashioned in molten brass, and placed them in the ground in front of the Jãmi’ Masjid, so that they might he trampled upon by the people.”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Shamsu’d-Dîn Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236) Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

People , Fashion

“Our enemies latched unto the word "apartheid" and in a very sly manner transformed it into the strongest weapon in the onslaught against freedom and civilization in our country.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As state president at a parade of the SA Police College, Pretoria, 20 June 1986, as cited in PW Botha in his own words, Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1987, p. 37

Freedom

“I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, 'Horrible three-way civil war?”

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American journalist

Appalling silence http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2003/20, January 16, 2003. Retrieved February 1, 2007.

God , War , Way , Forgiveness

“Ukraine is facing a serious threat of isolation as some local political forces want to put an end to democracy and democratic reforms in the country”

Viktor Yushchenko (1954) Ukrainian politician who was President of Ukraine

Regnum, July 25, 2006

Democracy

“It seems hopeless, hopeless. Those who eat meat [at public expense] are a mean, selfish lot, and so the country is doomed. Our only hope lies in the grass-roots folk who eat our traditional food.”

Yoshida Shoin (1830–1859) Japanese politician

Vol. VI.
Yoshida Shoin Zenshu

Food , Hope , Grass , Selfishness

“Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!—
Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,
These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,
That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;
To a boon southern country he is fled,
And now in happier air,
Wandering with the great Mother’s train divine
(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,
I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)
Within a folding of the Apennine.”

Matthew Arnold Thyrsis

St. 18
Thyrsis (1866)

Soul , Tree , Training

“Not only has Anonymous redefined what it means to be an advocate, Anonymous has reinvigorated advocacy in this country and has sent it flying off to the digital revolution.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As mentioned in the mint press http://www.mintpressnews.com/anonymous-revolutionized-revolt/200200/

Flying

“For Leftists in general have always opposed Theocracy in Muslim and Christian countries. It is only in India that they have become its unrivalled champions.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998)

“Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

“Today, I view Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as a bloated Brown Sahib, and Nehruism as the combined embodiment of all the imperialist ideologies Islam, Christianity, White Man's Burden, and Communism that have flooded this country in the wake of foreign invasions. And I do not have the least doubt in my mind that if India is to live, Nehruism must die. Of course, it is already dying under the weight of its sins against the Indian people, their country, their society, their economy, their environment, and their culture. What I plead is that a conscious rejection of Nehruism in all its forms will hasten its demise, and save us from the mischief which it is bound to create further if it is allowed to linger.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

How I became a Hindu (1982)

People , Communication

“I should get a weekend show where all I do is play country music.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

Springer On The Radio for Air America Radio, July 22nd 2005

Music

“I’m often called, so often called in the media, it’s like a part of my name “white supremacist” or whatever. I’m not one. I don’t want white people to be supreme. I don’t believe, in fact, that we should even have bases in 65 countries of the world I don’t think we should be in Iraq. I don’t believe we should try to control politics of the South American countries or the Southeast Asia or in Africa, or anywhere else in the world. But I do think we have a right to preserve our own culture, own heritage in our own country.”

David Duke (1950) American White nationalist, white supremacist, writer, right-wing politician, and a former Republican Louisiana …

Podcast (4 July 2006)

People , World , Thinking , Parting

“I very well recollect the reformation which took place in the country among the various denominations of Christians-the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others-when Joseph was a boy. Joseph's mother, one of his brothers, and one, if not two, of his sisters were members of the Presbyterian Church, and on this account the Presbyterians hung to the family with great tenacity. And in the midst of these revivals among the religious bodies, the invitation, "Come and join our church," was often extended to Joseph, but more particularly from the Presbyterians. Joseph was naturally inclined to be religious, and being young, and surrounded with this excitement, no wonder that he became seriously impressed with the necessity of serving the Lord. But as the cry on every hand was, "Lo, here is Christ," and "Lo, there!" Said he, "Lord, teach me, that I may know for myself, who among these are right." And what was the answer? "They are all out of the way; they have gone astray, and there is none that doeth good, no not one. When he found out that none were right, he began to inquire of the Lord what was right, and he learned for himself. Was he aware of what was going to be done? By no means. He did not know what the Lord was going to do with him, although He had informed him that the Christian churches were all wrong, because they had not the Holy Priesthood, and had strayed from the holy commandments of the Lord, precisely as the children of Israel did.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 12:67 (June 23, 1867)
Young’s recollection of religious excitement and events leading up to Joseph Smith, Jr.’s first vision.
1860s

Children , Family , Way , Boy

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

Winston S. Churchill book The River War

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899), Volume II pp. 248–250
This passage does not appear in the 1902 one-volume abridgment, the version posted by Project Gutenberg.
Downloadable etext version(s) of this book can be found online http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=4943 at Project Gutenberg
Early career years (1898–1929)

Life , Men , World , Fear

“He has borne the burdens few other men have borne in the history of the world, without hope or desire or thought to escape them. He has sought consensus but he has never shrunk from controversy. He has gained huge popularity but he has never failed to spend it in the pursuit of his beliefs or in the interest of his country.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

On LBJ (June 3, 1967); quoted in "The World Turned Upside Down" http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1968/03/25/page/20/article/the-world-turned-upside-down

Men , World , Hope , History

“He [Obama] lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
The phoney [sic] electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Two Twitter posts dated , as quoted in * 2016-11-15
Trump's flip-flop on the electoral college: From ‘disaster' to ‘genius'
The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/11/15/trumps-flip-flop-on-the-electoral-college-from-disaster-to-genius/
2016-11-15
Cf. Trump's interview on 60 Minutes as President-elect (13 November 2016): "I'm not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win. There's a reason for doing this because it brings all the states into play. Electoral College and there's something very good about that. But this is a different system. But I respect it. I do respect the system." ( transcript http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-donald-trump-family-melania-ivanka-lesley-stahl/)
2010s, 2012

“We have had landlord rule longer, far longer than the life of the oldest man in this vast assembly, and I would ask you to look at the results of that rule. The landowners have had unlimited sway in Parliament and in the provinces. Abroad the history of our country is the history of war and rapine: at home, of debt, taxes, and rapine too. In all the great contests in which we have been engaged we have found that this ruling class have taken all the honours, while the people have taken all the scars. No sooner was the country freed from the horrible contest which was so long carried on with the Powers of Europe, than this law, by their partial legislation, was enacted—far more hostile to British interests than any combination of foreign powers has ever proved. We find them legislating corruptly: they pray daily that in their legislation they may discard all private ends and partial affections, and after prayers they sit down to make a law for the purpose of extorting from all the consumers of food a higher price than it is worth, that the extra price may find its way into the pockets of the proprietors of land, these proprietors being the very men by whom this infamous law is sustained…”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Covent Garden (19 December 1845), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 142.
1840s

Life , Men , Hostility , War

“In general terms institutions have lost their credibility, not because they don't operate but rather because they operate behind closed doors; they have not been opened to the Chilean people. The national congress has been a closed space for many years, the binomial system has contained it within two political forces and it does not represent ideas calling for transformations, which have been present in our country for many years.”

Karol Cariola (1987) Chilean politician

Cariola, Mujer, Matrona, Dirigente Social y Política: Abrir el Congreso Nacional a la Ciudadanía, DiarioDigital, 2013-08-25 http://www.diarioreddigital.cl/index.php/politica/36-politica/443-karol-cariola-mujer-matrona-dirigente-social-y-politica-abrir-el-congreso-nacional-a-la-ciudadania-,
Original: "Las instituciones en general han perdido credibilidad, no porque no funcionen sino porque funcionan a puertas cerradas, porque no se han abierto a que el pueblo chileno pueda entrar a ellas. El congreso nacional ha sido un espacio cerrado durante muchos años, el binominal lo ha mantenido contenido en dos fuerzas políticas y no representa otras ideas que son de transformación y que han estado presentes durante muchos años en nuestro país".

People , Idea

“Why should we not boycott the Soviet Union and its supporters inside the country? If we do so, we can force them to review their stand. Either they give us what we want and what is necessary or they will lose our friendship.”

Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000) former president of Syria

Moscow and the Middle East: Soviet policy since the invasion of Afghanistan, Robert Owen Freedman, 1991, CUP Archive, 0521359767, 40, 426, 2010-6-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=6zk7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA40&dq=mustafa+talas+red+book&hl=en&ei=SGAaTJn2N5O8M7Sq-K8F&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Why%20should%20we%20not%20boycott%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20and%20its%20supporters%20inside%20the%20country%3F%20If%20we%20do%20so%2C%20we%20can%20force%20them%20to%20review%20their%20stand.%20Either%20they%20give%20us%20what%20we%20want%20and%20what%20is%20necesary%20or%20they%20will%20lose%20our%20friendship&f=false,

Friendship , Support

“I do request you to thank Mr. W___ for me, and tell him he has the prayers- not of a raving mad whig, nor fawning deceitful tory- but of a coal-black, jolly African, who wishes health and peace to every religion and country throughout the ample range of God's creation!”

Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) British composer, writer and grocer

(from vol 2, letter 62: 17 Jan 1780, to Mr S___ ).

God , Health , Peace , Religion

“Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent… If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Articles, 10 Things to Celebrate: Why I'm an Anti-Anti-American (June 2003)

World , Home , History , Problem

“Gary Barlow has done a huge amount for the country, he’s raised money for charity, he’s done very well for Children in Need so I’m not sure, the OBE was in respect of that work and what he’s done but clearly what this scheme was was wrong and it’s right that they’re going to pay back the money.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Good Morning Britain speaking about his view of tax avoidance schemes and if Gary Barlow should give back his OBE following claims that the singer took part in one - Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to Good Morning Britain, ITV (12 May 2014) http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/prime-minister-david-cameron-speaks-good-morning-britain
2010s, 2014

Money , Children

“The progressive Islamisation of our country and the increase in political-religious demands are calling into question the survival of our civilisation.”

Marine Le Pen (1968) French lawyer and politician

Source: Interview with The Daily Telegraph (26 December 2010) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8225697/National-Fronts-Marine-Le-Pen-to-prove-formidable-rival-to-Nicolas-Sarkozy.html

Question

“When all these things are lacking there is no culture; there is in the strictest sense of the word, barbarism. And let us not deceive ourselves, this is what is beginning to appear in Europe under the progressive rebellion of the masses. The traveller who arrives in a barbarous country knows that in that territory there are no ruling principles to which it is possible to appeal. Properly speaking, there are no barbarian standards. Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

Travel , Sense , Appearance

“What is the whole problem as it effects the working classes of this country? It is all contained in one word—employment. Cheap food, a higher standard of living, higher wages—all these things, important as they are, are contained in the word employment. If this policy will give you more employment, all the others would be added unto you. If you lose your employment, all the others put together will not compensate you for that loss.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Liverpool (27 October 1903), quoted in The Times (28 October 1903), p. 6.
1900s

Food , Problem , Loss

“Toryism, as we know it, was illuminated, expounded, and made a gospel for a large portion of this country by the genius of Benjamin Disraeli. Most of us who have worked for our great party have founded our beliefs on, and derived our inspiration from that statesman.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the centenary dinner of the City of London Conservative and Unionist Association (2 July 1936), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 37-38.
1936

“Ever since I entered Parliament in January, people have been asking me: Why have you gone into politics? As in: “Are you nuts?” No, I’m not nuts. This is my country, after all.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

Canada in the World Speech, University of Ottawa (30 March 2006)

People

“This Sunday, for some reason, I had not gone to Church. All the rest of the house-party had gone and there was no one in the house but myself and the servants. I was sitting in the drawing-room reading. The door opened and in walked a tall man dressed in European clothes (very well cut, I remember) but with a turban on his head. He came in and sat down beside me. I was so petrified at the sight of the turban that I could not make a sound or ask what he was doing there. Then he started to talk. He told me there was some work that it was planned that I could do in the world but that it would entail my changing my disposition very considerably; I would have to give up being such an unpleasant little girl and must try and get some measure of self-control. My future usefulness to Him and to the world was dependent upon how I handled myself and the changes I could manage to make. He said that if I could achieve real self-control I could then be trusted and that I would travel all over the world and visit many countries, "doing your Master's work all the time." Those words have rung in my ears ever since. He emphasised that it all depended upon me…”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter I, Part 2

World , Travel , Girl , Change

“(Television) We are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there so that we will not have to face them in our own country. (Sylvia) Oh, good. So once we get rid of those, there won't be any more.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 105

“What has been the state of things since 1853? It is useless to blink the fact that not merely within the circle of the public departments and of Cabinets, but throughout the country at large, and within the precincts of this House—the guardians of the purse of the people—the spirit of public economy has been relaxed; charges upon the public funds of every kind have been admitted from time to time upon slight examination; every man's petition and prayer for this or that expenditure has been conceded with a facility which I do not hesitate to say you have only to continue for some five or ten years longer in order to bring the finances of the country into a state of absolute confusion.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1859/jul/21/financial-policy-of-the-late-government in the House of Commons (21 July 1859) against Benjamin Disraeli's Budget.
1850s

People , Time , Housing

“A people whom Providence hath cast together into one island or country are in effect one great body politic, consisting of head and members, in imitation of the body natural, as is excellently set forth in the statute of appeals, made 24 H. 8, c. 12, which stiles the King the supreme head, and the people a body politic (these are the very words), compact of all sorts and degrees of men, divided into spirituality and temporality. And this body never dies.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1204.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

Men , People , Nature

“My young friends, you are soldiers in the battle of freedom-freedom from want, fear, ignorance, frustration and helplessness. By a dint of hard work for the country, rendered in a spirit of selfless service, may you march ahead with hope and courage.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

Fear , Hope , Courage , Freedom

“Because if you're not born in the United States, you cannot be president. And, there is a real question. And if this birth certificate exists, you know what I get a kick out of? The Governor of Hawaii says, "I remember when he was born 50 years ago." I doubt it. I think this guy should be investigated. I doubt it. He remembers when Obama was born? Give me a break! He's just trying to do something for his party. The fact is, if you're not born in the United States, you cannot be president. He is having a hard time — he spent millions of dollars trying to get away from this issue, millions of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from this issue. And I'll tell you what, I brought it up just routinely and all of a sudden, a lot of facts are emerging, and I'm starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

About Barack Obama's birth certificate.

2010s, 2011

Guy , Birth , Question , Thinking

“That dualism of the Church and the Chapel taken together has been one of the most potent influences in the life of our country. The one fostering, perhaps, more than the other, the respect for authority and tradition and the sense of historical continuity; the other laying its main emphasis on individual obedience to eternal law. They both have defects of their qualities, but they have both been, and are, and will be great social forces with great political consequences. Both at their best penetrate life with serious purpose, and are in constant war with that spirit of secularism which finds its paradise in idleness and frivolity, with which no country can ever prosper.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Cornwall (23 June 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 55.
1927

Life , War , Law , Sense

“Now we are clear-eyed about what our country is up against. But we are not afraid. We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have. We will not build a wall. Instead, we will build an economy where everyone who wants a good paying job can get one. And we'll build a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are already contributing to our economy! We will not ban a religion. We will work with all Americans and our allies to fight and defeat terrorism.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

Religion , Fight

“When you remember how few Jews there are in Italy and how relatively few there are in Germany, one must wonder at the violence and the bitterness of this perse cution. The number of Jews in Italy is only a small fraction of those in the city of New York, while there are in the city of New York six times as many Jews as there were in the German Reich when the last war ended and possibly more than four times as many as there are there now. Yet the persecution, personal, physical, family, financial, goes on, openly and secretly, in a way that is perfectly appalling. To my great astonishment, this anti-Semitic persecution has been violently and publicly revived in this country within the last few weeks or months, and it is as discreditable to us that this should have happened as anything that we can imagine.'
Jews differ among themselves just as do Spaniards or Italians or Canadians or Americans. There are some who belong to one party, some who belong to another some whp hold one point of view, some who hold a point of view that is contradictory. The notion that all who belong to that race or profess that faith are of one mind in everything that relates to their public relationships is a grotesque departure from fact. But if you can play upon an excited public emotion by the use of these terms and by the insinuation that the entire Hebrew population is engaged, let us say as we have been told from the platform recently in trying to get this nation into war, such statements, although absolutely contradictory to every well-known fact, will, if repeated long enough, be believed and acted upon by a certain number of our unthinking population.
We cannot protest too vigorously and too strongly against that sort of thing. It may be the Ku Klux Klan persecuting the Catholics, it may be the anti-Semites persecuting the Jews: but persecution on racial or religious ground has absolutely no place in a nation given over to liberty and which calls itself a democracy.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

War , Family , Faith , Way

“I want to acclaim the day when America is the most eminent of the shipping nations. A big navy and a big merchant marine are necessary to the future of the country…The United States, before the war, never seriously contested and had no thought of contesting Great Britain’s dominance in shipping, but since, as an incident of the war, we installed a huge shipbuilding plant and became the owners of what was, for us, an unprecedented quantity of tonnage, we have come to be ambitious in this field. If the aggregate mind of our business world were distilled, it would probably be found, consciously or unconsciously, that we now have a national ambition to contest Great Britain’s shipping dominance. If we are to achieve a position in shipping and foreign trade comparable with that which Great Britain has had for many generations, we can only do so through time, patience, and the building up of the reputation for commercial skill and integrity that makes Great Britain’s prestige in every part of Asia and Africa…We are witnessing and participating in one of those great incidents in world-history which occur only once in several centuries, and which will be a subject for poets and historians for generations to come.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

Speech at Norfolk, Virginia (4 December 1920), quoted in The Times (6 December 1920), p. 17.
1920s

War , World , History , Business

“I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America… As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German Prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country; your efforts are for ever vain and impotent— doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies— to overrun them with the sordid sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never!… I call upon the honour of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble Lord frowns with indignation at THE DISGRACE OF HIS COUNTRY! In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion of his country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords (18 November, 1777), responding to a speech by Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk, who spoke in favour of the war against the American colonists. Suffolk was a descendant of Howard of Effingham, who led the English navy against the Spanish Armada. Effingham had commissioned a series of tapestries on the defeat of the Armada, and sold them to King James I. Since 1650 they were hung in the House of Lords, where they remained until destroyed by fire in 1834.
William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 150-6.

Religion , Effort , Victory

“On behalf of Major League Baseball, I am terribly saddened by the sudden passing of Kirby Puckett. He was a Hall of Famer in every sense of the term. He was revered throughout the country and will be remembered wherever the game is played. Kirby was taken from us much too soon — and too quickly.”

Bud Selig (1934) American baseball executive

Game , Sense

“My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

On the Vice-Presidency of the United States, in a letter to Abigail Adams (19 December 1793).
1790s

Wisdom , Fate , Imagination , Evil

“Throughout the past few years, every time I committed an action or was subjected to a series of attacks, I had never felt the need to justify myself, this all changed today; today I felt the importance of clarifying many things due to the harsh and unfair criticism I am facing this time; criticism that has reached the point of questioning my loyalty to my country, which is completely unacceptable. Our home country is big enough not to impose one nature on all spectrums of its society.”

Loujain al-Hathloul (1989) Saudi Arabian activist

A Clarification (March 24, 2016)

Home , Question , Nature , Change

“You all should feel angry tonight, very angry, because yet again the legal system in this country has let you down. A court has ruled that a man who committed a ghastly crime against a little girl should walk free and unsupervised. The details are distasteful, but you should know. Hans Lester Watt abducted and raped a three-year-old girl. The 42-year-old was drunk when he took the toddler, and assulted her so badly, she needed medical attention. He said it was revenge, to get back at the innocent little girl's grandmother, whom he claimed had insulted his dead mother. Watt was jailed for 11 years. When due for release last year, the Queensland Attorney-General, understandably, applied to have him classified as a dangerous sexual offender. That meant his jail term could be extended, or at least he'd be released with a supervision order. Remember, this was a three-year-old girl. The court refused the request. The judge found the circumstances were "unique" — that Watt was not an unacceptable risk. Well, I agree it was unique — thank God the rape of a three-year-old doesn't happen often in this country. A psychiatrist said the chances of Watt re-offending were low if he did not drink alcohol, moderate if he did drink, and said the best chance of rehabilitation was if he lived in a dry Aboriginal community. The Attorney-General appealed the judge's decision. Well, yesterday, the Supreme Court turned him down, upheld the earlier ruling that let the child rapist walk free — unsupervised. My mantra for years has been "Who's looking after the children?" In my opinion, the Queensland Supreme Court certainly is not — this decision was a travesty.”

Derryn Hinch (1944) New Zealand–Australian media personality

Today Tonight, 24 April 2013.

God , Children , Alcohol , Feeling

“Our Investigation has required EIGHT full time undercover investigative reporters embedded throughout the country from the bottom to the top of many political entities. Because we have hundreds of hours of footage, we needed to connect the dots and the scenes into a storyline that links it all together. It will be more impactful and more powerful instead of just putting it all out there at once or as soon as I got the video money shots individually. Long story short, everything you've heard about back room deals and smoke filled rooms are verified. We have smoking gun evidence and it is incredibly damning.”

James O'Keefe (1984) American conservative filmmaker

Reddit AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/57jd2p/hi_im_james_okeefe_ask_me_anything/ (October 14, 2016)

Money , Time

“Over this country, when the giant Eagle flings the shadow of his wing, the land is darkened. So compact is it that the wing covers all its extent in one pause of the flight. The sea breaks on the pale line of the shore; to the Eagle's proud glance waves run in to the foot of the hills that are like rocks planted in green water.”

Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) New Zealand writer

Rogue Herries (1930) First lines

Water , Sea

“The Wild Hunt is known in all Celtic countries; it is a huntsman with a pack of hounds who is seen or heard to rush through the country. Those who see him are doomed to die. The writer heard the Wild Hunt quite distinctly one night in Wales several years ago, but has not suffered any ill effects from it as yet.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Ghost Stories (1942).

Suffering , Night

“Yes I have spoken on Gandhi ji’s Vaishnav Jan bhajan at many places. In fact, I used to deliver hour-long speeches describing why Gandhi ji loved this bhajan. If we think carefully and dwell on each word of this song, composed 500 years ago, we will find that everything said in it is still relevant, especially for our public life. He speaks against corruption and importance of personal integrity. In short, it is a manifesto for public life and morality. So, I worked around the words and would say: … "A people’s representative is one who feels the pain of others; one who removes the sorrows of others and yet does not let a trace of pride or arrogance come into his heart."
This used to be part of my worker development programmes. I used to analyse each line of this bhajan and explain why Gandhi ji promoted these values in public life; it contains all the wisdom you need for public life. It is a great misfortune for our country that this bhajan is played only on October 2 at Rajghat. It should have become an instrument of inculcating moral values. Gandhi ji liked this bhajan because Gandhi’s DNA and the elements of this geet match each other. I hold it up as a model of conduct for our party and RSS workers. In the RSS, there is an old tradition of remembering this bhajan every morning. Their pratah smaran (morning remembrance) starts with Gandhi ji’s name.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi quoted from Kishwar, Madhu (2014). Modi, Muslims and media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat. p.379-380
2013

Love , Life , Wisdom , Pain

“What has happened is that there are people who, for reasons best known to themselves, have voted for maintaining division in our country.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Source: Remarks following the Labour defeat at the 1987 general election (12 June 1987); reported in David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, "The British General Election of 1987" (Macmillan, 1987), p. 103.

People

“Once the war against Saddam Hussein begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if you can't do that, just shut up. Americans, and indeed our foreign allies, who actively work against our military once the war is underway, will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbara Streisand and others who see the world as you do. I don't want to demonize anyone, but anyone who hurts this country in a time like this, well — let's just say you will be spotlighted.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

2003-02-26
The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News
Television

War , World , Support , Time

“…(in the army) you're forced to learn the most important lesson in life, and that's the fact that you have to live up to your responsibilities, and you better do it right. When given an order, you can't say no. It's no exaggeration to say that lives are on the line. One wrong decision, and your buddy might die. It's this fact that makes the army work. That's the big mistake a lot of people make when they wonder how soldiers can put their lives on the line day after day or how they can fight for something they may not believe in. Not everyone does. …but when all is said and done, we do what we do for one another. For friendship. Not for country, not for patriotism, not because we're programmed killing machines, but because of the guy next to you. You fight for your friend, to keep him alive, and he fights for you, and everything about the army is built on this simple premise.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

John Tyree, Chapter 1, p. 18-19
2000s, Dear John (2006)

Life , Friendship , People , Guy

“I cannot believe that the gentry of England will be made mere drumheads to be sounded upon by a Prime Minister to give forth unmeaning and empty sounds, and to have no articulate voice of their own. No! You are the gentry of England who represent the counties. You are the aristocracy of England. Your fathers led our fathers: you may lead us if you will go the right way. But, although you have retained your influence with this country longer than any other aristocracy, it has not been by opposing popular opinion, or by setting yourselves against the spirit of the age. In other days, when the battle and the hunting-fields were the tests of manly vigour, why, your fathers were first and foremost there. The aristocracy of England were not like the noblesse of France, the mere minions of a court; nor were they like the hidalgoes of Madrid, who dwindled into pigmies. You have been Englishmen. You have not shown a want of courage and firmness when any call has been made upon you. This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age. The English people look to the gentry and aristocracy of their country as their leaders. I, who am not one of you, have no hesitation in telling you, that there is a deep-rooted, an hereditary prejudice, if I may so call it, in your favour in this country. But you never got it, and you will not keep it, by obstructing the spirit of the age.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/13/effects-of-corn-laws-on-agriculturists (13 March 1845).
1840s

War , People , Age , World

“Those who are filled with concern for the lot of humanity as a whole, especially for the less fortunate portions of it, are wont nowadays to call themselves idealists. We should at least recognize that ideals in this sense are not the same as standards and that they are often indeed the opposite of standards. It would be easy to mention institutions of learning in this country that are at present engaged in breaking down standards in the name of ideals.”

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) American academic and literary criticism

Source: "English and the Discipline of Ideas" (1920), pp. 64-65

Sense , Learning

“It is not in our interest to govern you. We would like you to govern yourselves in your own country. A democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria and economic viability, which would conduct normal relations of tranquility, security and peace with Israel. Abandon the path of terror and let us together stop the bloodshed. Let us move forward together towards peace.”

Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) prime minister of Israel and Israeli general

Address by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Fourth Herzliya Conference, December 18, 2003; cited in: Terje Rød-Larsen, ‎Fabrice Aidan, ‎Nur Laiq (2014), The Search for Peace in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. p. 373
2000s

Peace

“On this day, in this holy country, we get the honor for the victory of democracy. (22 March 1992, 1 month before the elections)”

Azem Hajdari (1963–1998) Albanian politician

Democracy , Victory

“From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a citizen. I insisted that there was no safety for him or for anybody else in America outside the American government; that to guard, protect, and maintain his liberty the freedman should have the ballot; that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box; that without these no class of people could live and flourish in this country; and this was now the word for the hour with me, and the word to which the people of the North willingly listened when I spoke. Hence, regarding as I did the elective franchise as the one great power by which all civil rights are obtained, enjoyed, and maintained under our form of government, and the one without which freedom to any class is delusive if not impossible, I set myself to work with whatever force and energy I possessed to secure this power for the recently-emancipated millions.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/dougl92/dougl92.html (1892), p. 460.
1890s, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892)

People , Freedom , Chance , Dependency

“On the question of Israel, I talk about what I saw during his trip to Israel, how I saw his (Barack Obama) understanding of the relationship with Israel - he would describe it as a commitment of the head and heart. He looks at Israel and sees us as being two countries with common values. But he also looks at Israel and sees that whatever threatens Israel also happens to threaten the United States. So we have a [common] interest, because we end up facing the same threats.”

Dennis Ross (1948) American diplomat

Understanding , Question , Heart

“We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of their country.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1970s, Margaret Mead: Some Personal Views (1979), p. 71

Faith

“Tell the merchant that he must not rely for one moment on the Home Rulers for any one thing that is wise and good, nor indeed on any political combination of Irishmen. They have never yet done anything for themselves or their country and have never yet as a party shown what ought to be done. The absence of political and economical knowledge in Ireland is remarkable, and what there is of a sensible middle class is apparently crushed or smothered by the extreme men, who are always in pursuit of some phantom and who seem not to know the substance even when they see it.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to Mr. O'Donoghue (15 March 1874), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 445
1870s

Men , Home , Knowledge

“I advocate an alliance of democratic states, with a dual purpose. One, to promote what I call open society. I talk about an alliance of open societies which would first foster the development of open societies within individual countries, because there's a lot that needs to be done in that effort. And secondly, to establish basic international law and international institutions that you need for a global, open society. So that's my sort of broad concept. Now, I have not worked out the details, because I don't think it's for me to work out the details. It's for them to work out the details.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Interview with Mark Shapiro (2000)

Law , Thinking , Effort

“In contrast to the ultimate realization that he was dealing with a formidable enemy in the east, Hitler clung to the end to his preconceived opinion that the troops of the Western countries were poor fighting material. Even the Allied successes in Africa and Italy could not shake his belief that these soldiers would run away at the first serious onslaught. He was convinced that these soldiers would run away from the first serious onslaught. He was convinced that democracy enfeebled a nation. As late as the summer of 1944 he held to his theory that all the ground that had been lost in the West would be quickly reconquered. His opinions on the Western statesmen had a similar bias. He considered Churchill, as he often stated during the situation conferences, an incompetent, alcoholic demagogue. And he asserted in all seriousness that Roosevelt was not a victim of infantile paralysis but of syphilitic paralysis and was therefore mentally unsound. These opinions, too, were indications, of his flight from reality in the last years of his life.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 306-307

Life , Alcohol , Democracy , Reality

“Australia cannot stand aside from the struggle to resist the aggressive thrust of Communism in Asia and to ensure conditions in which stability can be achieved. Our own national security demands this course. We cannot be isolationist or neutralist, placed as we are geographically and occupying, as we do, with limited national strength, this vast continent. We cannot leave it solely to our allies – and their national servicemen [conscripts] – to defend in the region the rights of countries to their own independence and the peaceful pursuit of their national way of life.”

Harold Holt (1908–1967) Australian politician, 17th Prime Minister of Australia

statement on the creation of a self-contained Australian task force to fight in Vietnam, 8 March 1966
As prime minister
Source: The Life and Death of Harold Holt, p. 178.

Life , Peace , Way , Communication

“No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50 thousand years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward — and so will space.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Rice University speech

History , Star , Problem , Light

“A truly multicultural country can never be strong or united.”

Pauline Hanson (1954) Australian politician

Maiden Speech (1996)

Strong

“The mystery, the romance, the coincidence of real life far transcends the mystery and the romance and the coincidence of fiction. I would like at the beginning of my remarks to remind hon. Members of something that has always struck me as one of the strangest and most romantic coincidences that have entered into our political life. Far away in time, in the dawn of history, the greatest race of the many races then emerging from prehistoric mists was the great Aryan race. When that race left the country which it occupied in the western part of Central Asia, one great branch moved west, and in the course of their wanderings they founded the cities of Athens and Sparta; they founded Rome; they made Europe, and in the veins of the principal nations of Europe flows the blood of their Aryan forefathers. The speech of the Aryans which they brought with them has spread through out Europe. It has spread to America. It has spread to the Dominions beyond the seas. At the same time, one branch went south, and they crossed the Himalayas. They went into the Punjab and they spread through India, and, as an historic fact, ages ago, there stood side by side in their ancestral land the ancestors of the English people and the ancestors of the Rajputs and of the Brahmins. And now, after aeons have passed, the children of the remotest generations from that ancestry have been brought together by the inscrutable decree of Providence to set themselves to solve the most difficult, the most complicated political problem that has ever been set to any people of the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1929/nov/07/india in the House of Commons (7 November 1929).
1929

Life , Children , People , Age

“There is now a strong movement in this country to bring the public school system under federal domination. The movement could not have been thought of before the government had the means for carrying out the idea; that is, before income taxation. The question is, have those who plug for nationalization of the schools come to the idea by independent thought, or have they been influenced by the bureaucrats who see in nationalization a wider opportunity for themselves? We must lean to the latter conclusion, because among the leaders of the movement are many bureaucrats. However, if the movement is successful, if the schools are brought under the watching eye of the federal government, it is a certainty that the curriculum will conform to the ideals of Big Government. The child’s mind will never be exposed to the idea that the individual is the one big thing in the world, that he has rights which come from a higher source than the bureaucracy.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954), pp. 34-35

World , School , Idea , Question

“A democratic country has zero tolerance for all illegal monitoring operations.”

Jiang Yi-huah (1960) Taiwanese politician

Jiang Yi-huah (2013) cited in " Jiang defends Cabinet ahead of poll http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2013/10/15/391346/Jiang-defends.htm" on The China Post, 15 October 2013

“I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries."
"Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?"
"There is a single legal personality for the EU, the primacy of European law, a new architecture for foreign and security policy, there is an enormous extension in the fields of the EU's powers, there is Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

Jean-Claude Juncker (1954) Luxembourgian politician

On the Lisbon Treaty, Le Soir L'invité du lundi Jean-Claude Juncker : « Succès objectif, déception atmosphérique », 2 July 2007, Le Soir, 2 July 2007, page 18 Bruno Waterfield, Brendan Carlin: 'Don't tell British about the EU treaty' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/03/weu103.xml, Telegraph, 3 July 2007.
2007

People , Law , Intelligence , Drawing

“For too long people have forgotten what a genius there is in the ordinary people of this country…the English stock is a true stock; and our people are the same people as those who built our cathedrals and our village churches: who carved the sculptures and who carved the screens inside them.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech upon receiving the Freedom of the City of Winchester (6 July 1928), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 115.
1928

People

“Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries with which I have been most connected and which I will not forget. I greet my wife, my family and my friends. I am ready. We'll meet again soon, as is the fate of all men. I die believing in God.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Before his execution in Jerusalem (1 June 1962), as quoted in Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" by David Cesarani (2006), p. 321. ISBN 978-0-306-81539-3.

Men , God , Fate , Family

“We believe that those people who make efforts to free their countries should not be regarded as terrorists.”

Manouchehr Mottaki (1953) Iranian politician

People , Effort

“Hillary Clinton's catastrophic immigration plan will bring vastly more radical Islamic immigration into this country, threatening not only our society but our entire way of life. When it comes to radical Islamic terrorism, ignorance is not bliss. It's deadly — totally deadly. … Clinton's State Department was in charge of admissions and the admissions process for people applying to enter from overseas. Having learned nothing from these attacks, she now plans to massively increase admissions without a screening plan including a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into our country. Tell me, tell me – how stupid is that? This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan Horse ever was. Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you'd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children. Not only their children, by the way, they're trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is and how wonderful Islam is and we don't know what's happening. The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really to screen. We're not screening people.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Life , Children , People , Stupidity

“Men of mixed blood in this country apply the name 'negro' to themselves, not because it is a correct ethnological description, but to seem especially devoted to the black side of their parentage. Hence in some cases they are more noisily opposed to the conclusion to which I have come, than either the white or the honestly black race. The opposition to amalgamation, of which we hear so much on the part of colored people, is for most part the merest affectation, and, will never form an impassable barrier to the union of the two varieties.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1880s, The Future of the Colored Race (1886)

Men , People , Color , Parting

“Things like the proposed tech tax are actually a very good idea. The specific form of it is debatable, but the idea is that five companies are worth $3.5tn, basically because of network externalities and information monopolies, and therefore are absolutely right for efficient taxation… The marginal cost of production of AI is effectively zero. The ability to make these technologies available to the poorest countries at no cost is an evident option. So we should be taking special care to make sure that this revolution can reach everybody.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Tech tax' necessary to avoid dystopia, says leading economist, the Guardian, 23 Oct 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/23/exclusive-tech-tax-jeffrey-sachs-ai-wealth-facebook-google-amazon

Idea

“As an artistic style, mannerism conformed to a divided outlook on life which was, nevertheless, spread uniformly all over Western Europe; the baroque is the expression of an intrinsically more homogeneous worldview, but one which assumes a variety of shapes in the different European countries. Mannerism, like Gothic, was a universal European phenomenon, even if it was restricted to much narrower circles than the Christian art of the Middle Ages; the baroque, on the other hand, embraces so many ramifications of artistic endeavour, appears in so many different forms in the individual countries and spheres of cultures, that it seems doubtful at first sight whether it is possible to reduce them all to a common denominator.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

'Chapter 8. The Concept of Baroque
The Social History of Art', Volume II. Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, 1999

Life , Age , Art , Universe

“The Achaeans of north Greece, which was later to be called Thessaly, seem to have been the great sea-adventurers of the heroic age. With this country were connected the memories of early Greek exploration of the Euxine, in the legend of the ship Argo. And to the Achaeans of Thessaly we must probably refer the earliest notice which preserves the Achaean name in a historical document. An Egyptian writing tells us that they came in company with other peoples "from the lands of the sea" and invaded Egypt in the year 1229 B. C., when Memptah was king. But the great achievement which made the Achaeans illustrious was one in which southern and northern Greece combined—the expedition against Troy.”

J. B. Bury (1861–1927) Irish historian and freethinker

2nd ed. (1913), p. 45 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015026609167;view=1up;seq=77
A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (1913)

People , Age , Memory , Sea

Quotes about homeland page 51

Quotes about homeland
page 51